Retail Therapy Charity

President's Notes: Retail Therapy is a charity that is three years in the making. I spent a long time trying to figure out exactly what service our non-profit could perform that would be useful in our communities. After 2 years researching the types of services we could offer to the people of Southern California, I realized that there are already so many non-profit organizations that are offering amazing services that are of great value and yet many of them are undiscovered by most of our communities. It was then that I realized the best service we could offer as a non-profit organization is to promote the many existing charitable services in southern California. The next question was, so how do we do that? Again after much research it was by luck that the answer was shown to me nearly a year ago. One day I went to the popular consignment store The Buffalo Exchange. To my surprise the clothing store was hosting a charity event for a non-profit group called Families First. This non-profit group had a booth set up outside of the Buffalo Exchange with four or five bins of good quality used clothing they had collected, all on sale for a dollar. The Buffalo Exchange had also donated some of their clothing to be sold at this event as well. What a great deal for a great cause I thought! I grabbed up $15.00 worth of clothing and headed to the checkout table where two of the charities representatives were waiting to check me out and hand out information on the services their charity offered. Then it dawned on me...........This is how we could promote different charities around Southern California. The idea is to find different retail clothing stores that are willing to host an event that we would organize. We would sale used clothing that we have collected (similar to what I experienced at the Buffalo Exchange) and donate the money raised the charity that we have decided to support for that event. Every month we would host one of these events in different communities, and each event would benefit a charity who offers a valuable service for that community. By doing this we will be raising funds and awareness which is much needed for the wonderful programs available in our communities. Retail Therapy is dedicated to making charity fashionable. -Cory Scurlock